Henri Rousseau – Portrait of the Artist with a Lamp

Portrait of the Artist with a Lamp is a work by the painter Henri Rousseau, oil on canvas; the work is not securely dated. The original measures 23 cm x 19 cm and is in the collection of Musée Picasso, Paris, France (inv. RF1973-88). The picture shows: a man with a high forehead and a large moustache in a black jacket before a pale curtain, a lit oil lamp with a glass chimney at the right.

Portrait of the Artist with a Lamp – a hand-painted reproduction

The background is a pale grey-white curtain in soft vertical folds. At the right stands a
lit oil lamp: a gilt reservoir with a banded, worked surface on a pale blue-green foot, a dark
toothed gallery above it, and a tall clear glass chimney enclosing a pale upright flame. The
left two thirds are filled by the head and shoulders of a middle-aged to elderly man, turned
very slightly, his eyes on the viewer. He has a high bald forehead, dark hair swept thickly at
the sides and back over the ears, heavy dark brows, blue-grey eyes under heavy lids, a strong
nose, full cheeks and a full chin – and a large dark moustache with the ends drawn out and
curled upward. He wears a black jacket, a white stand collar and a dark navy bow tie. There is
nothing else in the picture.

A canvas that has a partner

This work does not stand alone: it is the pendant to Portrait of the Second Wife of the Artist. Both canvases come from the same
collection, both measure 23 cm x 19 cm, both have the same pale curtain behind them and the
same lit oil lamp – with one difference that only becomes obvious when they are set side by
side: the lamp is mirrored. In the portrait of the woman it stands at the left; here it stands
at the right, so that hung as a pair the two lamps turn inward. That is not our supposition
but what a comparison of the two files shows.

What the title says, and what it does not

The record’s title speaks of the artist, and the record’s creator field names Henri
Rousseau. We repeat the title as it is written and go no further: we do not assert that the
man shown is the painter, we give no age, and we do not place the work in his life. The
inference may be obvious, but it is the record’s to make and not ours. Nor do we date the
work – the record gives a decade rather than a year. The other two family portraits by the
same hand in this group are Portrait of the Father of the Artist and The Child with the Doll.

What it means on the wall

The original measures 23 cm x 19 cm, about the size of a postcard. Because this is one of a
pair, the choice that makes most sense is the same size for both canvases, hung next to each
other; done that way the two lamps form the centre and the two faces look outward. At small
sizes the toothed gallery on the lamp and the tips of the moustache collapse into dots, while
at half a metre every strand of hair reads separately. We do not reproduce canvases at the
original measurement; you choose the size for your wall. For the opposite case, a wide bright
scene, see View of the Bridge at Sèvres.

How a hand-painted reproduction is made

Every canvas is painted by hand in oils, to order, in the size you choose. The painter
works from a high-resolution photograph of the original, layer by layer, so that the glass
chimney of the lamp, the toothed gallery beneath it and the tips of the moustache stay legible
at smaller sizes too. Because this is hand work, two canvases of the same size always differ
slightly; that is not a fault but the difference between a painting and a print. Prices on
this page start at 155 EUR for the smallest size.